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<title>in the shadows | completed by songintheglaciers (awyr)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29025936">in the shadows | completed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/awyr/pseuds/songintheglaciers'>songintheglaciers (awyr)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>death and I, we go hand in hand [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ajin-like Horror with Shadow Slinking Powers, Crossdressing, Gen, Inspired by Ajin | Demi-Humans (Ajin), Inspired by Chitra &amp; Villaness transmigrating/reincarnating novels/webcomics, Isekai, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Romance, Summoned into another world, Swords &amp; Sorcery, Transported Into Another World</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:33:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>442</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29025936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/awyr/pseuds/songintheglaciers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><em>'Smile, Al... smile and good things will follow,'</em> is what Selene remembers being her last words when she's yanked into a sprawling room carpeted with velvet and marble pillars reaching up to the high ceiling. </p><p>A few meters away from her towers a tall blonde with calculating ferocity briefly bleeding through her lilac eyes.</p><p>Supposedly, she's been summoned by the future Queen to be her lady-in-waiting.</p><p>Perhaps the world should let her grieve first. </p><p>[[Updates when I feel like it]]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Josephine Summerstein &amp; Selene | "Sterling" | The Undying | Number Two, Porter Langston/Nora Sinnett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>death and I, we go hand in hand [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118975</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in the shadows | completed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The weight pressing against her light body, particularly heavy against her eyelids, almost overrides the soft thudding of her heart against her aching rib cage.</p><p>It pulls her, the 'it'. She doesn't know what the 'it' is, but when she feels herself kneeling on the plush carpet with warm sunlight bright against her closed eyes, it feels right.</p><p>So when she flutters her mossy-green eyes open, Selene keeps her head hanging low and waits.</p><p>Her scarred feet with crusted blood between her toes are digging into a velvet carpet. Her clothes are different. New and not ragged from the battlefield. New and not Alt'an. New, and she appreciates the sobering contrast.</p><p>For her siblings' voices are harrowing in the silence of her mind.</p><p>Selene doesn't blink. Her heart feels empty when she closes her eyes, their faces blinding in the darkness.</p><p>So she continues to wait.</p><p>Even when her summoner makes her way down the marble platform, her polished shoes stepping into her vision.</p><p>Pale and long, cold fingers, with blue and purple blood vessels clear on her skin peeking out sapphire-encrusted cuffs, firmly clasp her chin, tilting her head up.</p><p>And Selene observes.</p><p>Her summoner, with her light blonde hair and lilac eyes so much like Sylvia, makes her breathing hurt harder than it already hurts. But from how cold ferocity bleeds through those eyes, her wavy hair framing her cheeks as it drapes across her left shoulder, it seems she has a mind like Danilo's.</p><p>She wonders what heart she has.</p><p>"Your name."</p><p>Her summoner says with a lilting voice, grasp still firm, but light enough to not redden her skin. The language is unfamiliar, but she still understands much to her suppressed confusion.</p><p>"The name which was given to me or the name I have taken?" Selene asks, mouth flowing with unfamiliar sounds with the jarring familiarity of the language.</p><p>"Both," her summoner answers, their gazes still locked. Her other hand moves to tuck a lock of Selene's light brown hair away from her cheek, red brushing her fingers from the blood still damp from her dried wound, twinging slightly.</p><p>"Number Two," Selene replies steadily, her voice unwavering. "However, I prefer Selene."</p><p>Her summoner shifts her fingers away from her chin and tenderly holds her cheek instead, careful like she is fragile and needed.</p><p>"Accompany me," she hears, conviction heavy in her summoner's tone. "Accompany me as I become queen."</p><p>Like Danilo, Selene notices necessity burning in her summoner's eyes and lowers her head again.</p><p>"As you ask, my Atlas."</p><p>As long as this world will let her grieve, for her world had crushed their Atlas, and then them.</p>
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